If Only
by It Doesn't Make Sense
Summary: [The Santa Clause 1 & 2] Things currently aren't going so well at the North Pole for two different people... any sort of change would be welcome. Bernard Fic.
1. Just the Beginning of the Fun

Author's Note: Hey! I just figured I'd give this a shot, since I really don't have anything better to do. Plus, I really love The Santa Clause and The Santa Clause 2, so I figured I would just try to write something for them and see how it goes! =)  
  
This chapter is set before the first Santa Clause and is just to set things up a bit. Hope you enjoy it!  
  
********************  
  
Complaining never really did anything for anyone, right? Sitting around, thinking of all the ways things could be better and how your situation couldn't be any worse was hardly the best way someone could spend their time. Just being positive and realizing that every day brought a new chance for things to change was always a good way to go about things, and that was what any average person might suggest to someone to do if they were feeling a bit depressed about their current standing in the world.  
  
Too bad no one informed Chelsea of this idea. Currently, the sanitation elf was busying herself with pushing her large broom around the main area of Santa's Workshop. The brunette elf sighed as she walked back and forth across the fairly large area, trying to capture every single one of the wood shavings and other random things that littered the floor after the toy-making elves had gone to their cozy little homes. Chelsea wished she was in hers at the moment, but since her job required her to be in the workshop cleaning up all the way in to the wee hours of the morning, she had quite some time left in this work "day".  
  
Of course, calling herself a "sanitation elf" was just a nice way of saying "janitor". Because of the fact that Chelsea had a horrible time with trying to craft any of the beautiful toys that Santa's elves were known for, the 1,545-year-old elf was really only left with the option of working after-hours at the North Pole. She didn't really have an interest in the fancy technology that was used by the elves who worked in the command center that watched for all possible threats to the secrecy of the North Pole. The brown-haired elf also wasn't terribly fond of making hot cocoa and serving it to people all day. Seeing how many new children's names were added to the naughty list each year just depressed her, so working in the list area was out of the question... basically, as it was mentioned before, she had no other alternatives.  
  
"Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane..." some of the younger janitor elves sang as Chelsea knelt down to collect some of the dirt and other trash particles in to a dust pan. All of them, ranging in age from 300 to 450-years-old, would be promoted sooner rather than later. They were all good at different things, and most of them were entirely careless when it came to their current job position, so it was only natural that they would be upgraded to the main area when they were just a little bit older. Everything was going so well for them...  
  
Chelsea hated to think of the younger elves being moved to the toy-making section as being "upgraded" since it made her job seem fairly insignificant, but that was how she felt everyone else looked at it. She had only been to the workshop during the day a few times and she knew that, despite the fact that most of the elves there meant well, they sort of looked down on the ones who held Chelsea's job. All elves were supposed to be good at making toys and the janitor job was for the newcomers that they didn't have room for on the main-line.  
  
"One day..." Chelsea sighed to herself, quietly, so that the other elves didn't hear and ask her to tell them what she was talking about. That had often too many times for her to try to think about and it didn't bring her much joy trying to get them to leave her alone. These elves, the current batch of them, were cute, perky, and inquisitive. Three traits, which while separate were completely bearable, that she could barely stand when they were combined. Most elves were a mixture of any two of them, or lost some of their up-beat attitude once they got older and were a good deal more tranquil, though still sweet as ever, making them fine to deal with. There were some, though, that seemed to be all three of those for eternity... and that just didn't sit well with Chelsea.  
  
"Chelsea!" One of the youngest elves, Trisha, shouted as she ran up to the slightly-depressed elf, who was currently emptying her dust pan in to a much larger trash container that she would be taking outside to be removed by some of the maintenance elves that would arrive early in the morning. The younger, blonde-haired elf smiled up at Chelsea, having noticed that the brunette looked just a little bit glum at the moment. "Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?"  
  
"Nothing, Trisha," was the reply she got, along with Chelsea's best fake smile. "I've just been thinking about Christmas and how much work we're going to have to start doing to make sure this place is in perfect order for the toy-making elves when they come in. I mean, we've only got a little over a month left!"  
  
"I know! An' I've been really nervous 'cause one of my friends who got moved up t' makin' toys last year, Claire, said that she heard them talkin' 'bout elves that were gonna be moved up to toys after Christmas... and they said my name!" The tiny blonde squealed with delight at the thought of getting to build toys for children all over the world. The fact that she could be helping to make one day out of the year something special for a little kid thrilled her to death, just as it did most other elves, and Chelsea couldn't help but be happy for Trisha.  
  
"That's great, hun," Chelsea said, still giving her that fake smile, though it was toned down a little bit by now. "I'm sure you'll do really well at it and everybody will love you..."  
  
"I hope they do, 'cause I'm really gonna try my best," Trisha told her, but then felt like she was getting off track. A look of concern passed over her face as she gave Chelsea a strange look. All of this talk about not being a janitor elf anymore usually didn't sit well with Chelsea, so why was she being all happy now? "Are you sure you're okay? Seems t' me like ya might be jus' a teensy li'l bit sad 'bout somethin'... do ya wanna talk 'bout it?"  
  
The brunette chuckled a bit, "don't worry, Trisha, I'm fine. Like I said, I was just thinking about Christmas and everything. If I look sad about anything it's because I'm thinking of the mess that's going to be left for us to clean up as that day gets closer!"  
  
"Well," Trisha started, giggling, "I s'pose you're right. But if ya ever need somebody t' talk to, ya betcha that ya can talk t' me, 'kay?"  
  
"Okay, Trisha... now you'd better get back to work with your friends, we've still got a good bit of work to do before the morning," Chelsea told her, shooing the younger elf off with a smile. As soon as Trisha was out of sight, the look of happiness that had graced the older elf's features for a little while disappeared. Yes, she was happy for Trisha, but there was still that nagging voice in the back of her head that told her she needed to get out of the night shift at this place, because no matter how cheerful it still looked, despite the lack of hustle and bustle that made it so much fun during the day, this place was dead at night... and Chelsea couldn't take it.  
  
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"You guys are doing a great job," Bernard, the head elf, told the other elves as they continued to work on perfecting each of the toys they were working on. It was just about a month until Christmas, and though things were just a little bit behind schedule, it looked like it was going to end up being all right as long as they kept up this pace.  
  
Of course, if he could get Santa Claus to believe that, Bernard would be in a great position right now. He wouldn't have so much stress building up if the man in charge would just believe him when he said that things were going smoothly and that he would have everything straightened out. But, no, every other second he was being called up to the office to explain to Santa just what was going on, why it was going on, and how long it was going to take to fix, like it was something that should just go away over night.  
  
As a matter of fact, the problem had only shown up when a sufficient amount of wrapping paper hadn't been prepared for a certain day's work. It caused a build up of toys, which caused the toy-making elves to stop since the wrapping elves couldn't do their job. Everything was cleared-up by the end of the day, but it had left them with just a small deficit in the amount of toys that were ready to be delivered. However, the elves had been working extra hard since that day and everyone, except for Mr. Claus, as he liked to be called, was feeling confident about what the outcome would be.  
  
"Bernard!" came the announcement over the intercom, causing the Arch-Elf to jump just a bit. He never did get used to hearing his name shouted so often, not even after dealing with this guy for two Christmases. This Santa Claus, whose real name was Stewart Casas, was a lot more controlling than the last one. The one before him, which was the first Santa that Bernard was number one elf under, was a pretty easy-going guy who was content to let Bernard take care of things in the workshop. He trusted that the elves knew what they were doing... this new guy didn't. With a sigh, the curly-haired elf hurried off to find out what it was that Santa felt the need to bug him about now.  
  
He really hated not being cheerful. While most people found him to be a bit of a perfectionist, pessimist, and just all-around obsessed with his work, Bernard really did try to put on a happy face for the worker elves that saw him everyday as he walked around to make sure everything was in order. Bernard knew just as well as anybody else what it was like to make toys all day and, even if you enjoyed it, that it got quite tedious after awhile. He did his best to give constructive criticism where it was necessary, but also to heap praise upon the beings that were doing all of this work.  
  
"Yes, Santa?" Bernard said upon entering the office of the leader of the North Pole and its activities. The much larger man was seated behind a desk, idly looking over some papers that he had probably already read a few times each. Somehow, Santa had managed to make himself bored during this particularly hectic time, and seemed to think constantly calling on Bernard to pester him about all of the problems, most of which were not legitimate ones, he saw with the toy-making process.  
  
"Has everything been straightened out with that wrapping paper shortage?" The white-haired man inquired.  
  
"Yes. It was straightened out by the end of that day and everything has been in fantastic working order ever since," Bernard assured him, a hint of annoyance in his voice caused by the fact that this was probably the fourth or fifth time he had answered this question.  
  
"You know, that is not the attitude to be taking with the head of the North Pole," Santa told him. "You could easily be replaced by one of the elves that are even older than you are. There's nothing special about being 1,700-years-old around here, Bernard. There are heads of different departments here that are closer in age to 2,000 than you are."  
  
"I know," Bernard admitted with a sigh. "I'm sorry for my attitude. It won't happen again... things have just been a bit hectic around here lately."  
  
Santa didn't reply, just went back to looking through his papers. He wasn't interested in the dark-haired elf's excuses, but he also knew it wouldn't be good for morale to get rid of Bernard this close to Christmas. There would always be time for that after the holiday season was over.  
  
"Go," was all the Christmas icon said, and Bernard immediately obeyed. He was very eager to get away from this man and everything that was associated with him. This Santa Claus was one of the few people who almost made the Arch-Elf dislike Christmas, and that was quite nearly impossible.  
  
After Bernard shut the door to Santa's room behind him, he leaned against it and breathed a huge sigh of relief. If there was ever a Santa Claus he wished would fall off a roof or something so that they could get a new one around here, this guy would be the one. 


	2. Things Aren't Going So Well

Author's Note: Okay, lol, not necessarily some of my best work, but for this little section I got a big case of writer's block, yet tried to push on through it. The "fun stuff" with Scott taking over as Santa will be happening soon, so then Bernard won't be miserable... all of the time, at least. :-) Enjoy!

* * *

December 24th. Christmas Eve. One of the few nights a year when Chelsea was in the workshop at the same time as the main worker elves. There was an extreme amount of hustle and bustle going on, and the female elf was having a hard time keeping everything in order as everyone prepared for Santa Claus to take off in his sleigh to deliver toys to the children of the world. Everything was going to be ready on time... at least, everyone hoped it would be... and only a few last minute things, such as wrapping and actually putting the presents in to Santa's bag, were left to be done.  
  
"Silver bells! Why can't these children at least try to clean up after themselves?" Chelsea asked out loud, annoyance showing in her voice. For no reason in particular, and on Christmas Eve of all days, the brunette elf had suddenly been put in to a bad mood. All of her peers around and for some reason, Chelsea was barely keeping it together.  
  
"All right, guys, just fifteen minutes left! Lets get this stuff in the sleigh and ready to go," someone shouted from the top of the stairs, almost as if they were in an authoritative position. Not that they really had anything to worry about, as the last of the presents were being loaded up as the words were spoken, giving them a reason to sigh as if to release all of the pressure that had been building up to this moment.  
  
If she had really been paying attention, Chelsea would not have had to look up to see who the voice belonged to, but as she had been slightly more preoccupied with getting every little bit of spare ribbon picked up off of the floor, she hadn't had time to recognize it. As she went over to a large, festively decorated trash container so that she could be rid of the trash she was carrying, the relatively old elf looked up to see who had made the announcement.  
  
Bernard. She really, really should have known that, considering he was her superior and everything, but it had been so long since she had really been forced to be around him that she occasionally forgot he was even around. That wasn't really much of an excuse, though... Chelsea still had to report to Bernard every once in awhile, considering that he didn't usually stay around once the clean-up crew went through the workshop. He trusted them to do whatever it was they did and then dealt with the actual making of the toys, wrapping, and every other "important" job that you would expect at the North Pole.  
  
"Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea! D'ya wanna come with me t' watch Santa take off?!" Trisha asked, her voice and everything about her absolutely bubbling over with excitement.  
  
"No, that's all right, Trisha," Chelsea replied as warmly as she could, considering the mood she had somehow put herself in. "You go on ahead and I'll try to get caught up on the cleaning, if I can..."  
  
"Aw... come on! It'll be fun, I promise," Trisha begged, hoping that the older elf would change her mind.  
  
"Well..." Chelsea hesitated. She really wasn't in much of a mood to watch Santa depart. It wasn't just the fact that she was in a bad mood or that she had heard that the current Santa Claus was a complete jerk, but it had just never seemed like a big deal to her. Then again, after she had seen 1,544 of the take-offs, they all started to look the same, and somehow the 1,545 take-off just wasn't appealing to her in any meaning of the word.  
  
"All right," she finally consented. It couldn't hurt to go and watch, right? Besides, it would temporarily pacify Trisha, which meant that the younger elf might be able to remain focused on the task at hand, cleaning up, once they got back.  
  
"Yay!" Trisha exclaimed with excitement before grabbing hold of Chelsea's wrist and pulling her towards the area where the reindeer were waiting to take off. "Then we can go t' the party an' everythin'!"  
  
Oh goodness... the party. How could she have forgotten about the party? Christmas knew, she had to clean up after the huge mess every year, how could she have completely forgotten about the thing? Maybe in her current state she just wasn't ready to remember all of the things that had made up all of her years at the North Pole. Simple things seemed to be forgotten today, and the Christmas part had been no exception.  
  
In all honesty, Chelsea almost intended to just go back to her little home and skip the thing entirely. No one would notice if one little sanitation elf was missing, right? Maybe Trisha would, but with all of the merriment even she wouldn't care for too long that her friend had, for some reason, decided to opt out of the festivities. Parties just never had been Chelsea's favorite thing, unlike all of the other elves... sometimes the poor girl wondered if she was really even an elf, or if this was all some cruel joke that had been played on her, putting her around all of this never-ending happiness.  
  
"Isn't that great, Chels?!" Trisha asked with excitement, trying to get a response from Chelsea to a statement she had never even heard.  
  
"Huh? What?" Chelsea asked, snapping out of her daze.  
  
"I said that one of the other elves told me that it's official now: I gets t' be makin' toys for next Christmas 'stead of workin' on the clean-up crew!" Trisha giggled, finally releasing her grip on her friend's wrist as they made it to the sleigh's 'launch pad'.  
  
"Oh... yeah, that's fantastic, Trisha!" Chelsea said with a smile. "I'm sure you'll do a great job."  
  
"I hope so..." Trisha replied, then got a bit of a pitying look on her face. "Don't worry, Chels... you'll make it t' the main line someday!"  
  
Chelsea shrugged, not wanting to show her slight disappointment about losing yet another friend to the workshop while she continued to be stuck as a janitor. "Yeah, I know..."

* * *

"Is everything ready, Bernard?" Santa asked as he stood in front of the mirror in his office, tying his sash and other such things. Just a few last minute wardrobe adjustments before taking off in his sleigh. Bernard had just come back from making an announcement to the elves, informing them that they had to have everything ready and in the sleigh within the next fifteen minutes.  
  
"Yes, sir... it should be soon, at least," Bernard replied, knowing that he probably shouldn't have added on the last part which cast a hint of doubt over whether things would be ready or not, even though there really wasn't any reason at all to worry. The elves had never messed up before, why would they now?  
  
"You know, Bernard, I'm not really sure you're cut out for this head elf job," Santa informed the much older, yet much younger looking man. "These elves have been slacking off all year, even today, and yet you don't seem to care at all that things just aren't getting done like they should be."  
  
"Well, I..." Bernard stammered, surprised at being called on something like this. The other Santa he had worked under had never questioned his ability to be a leader, and this guy didn't even seem to know what he was talking about.  
  
"With that wrapping paper incident, you should have been all over that before it even became a problem," Santa went on to explain, though Bernard still wasn't really understanding where this mini-lecture was going.  
  
"I did the best I could, and it didn't even cause that much of a problem," Bernard barely explained, trying to figure out where this speech had come from.  
  
"Well, the best that you could do wasn't good enough, obviously, or it never would have happened," the legendary Christmas figure told him as he headed towards the door so that he could get to the sleigh with a few minutes to spare. It would have looked incredibly bad for him if he made such a big deal about things being on time and he couldn't even be where he needed to be on one night out of the entire year.  
  
"I... I don't think I understand where this is going," Bernard said, looking and feeling quite confused by this point.  
  
The bearded man gave an exasperated sigh just as he was about to leave the room. "When I get back, I'm finding a replacement for you, Bernard. There has to be another elf in that workshop who knows how to get things done. Maybe that Curtis boy... he's a lot younger, but a lot smarter, too... I don't know, I'll worry about it once I get back."  
  
Without another word, Santa left the room, leaving a stunned Bernard to flop down on a red, cushiony chair. It went without saying that he was more than a bit stunned by this news, considering that he had never realized that there was any sort of problem with the way he ran things at the North Pole. Even if he wasn't really the most cheerful elf ever to hold his current position, though that was quite easily attributed to the fact that the current Santa wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine himself, Bernard had always gotten the job done. To his knowledge, none of the other elves had ever complained about anything he did, and... well, this just wasn't fair!  
  
But what was he going to do about it? Whenever someone became Santa, they were officially Bernard's boss, and whatever they said immediately became the law. No if's, and's, or but's about it. How could he just sit by and let this happen, though? Was he just going to sit by and watch as his position as Arch Elf slipped through his finger tips? In a word... yes. In more than a word... most definitely. There was nothing he could do about it, so why try to fight it? It wouldn't help his ability to regain the position later on, if the thought came up in the mind of one of the more... clear-minded Santas.  
  
After taking a deep breath, the curly-haired elf stood up and straightened out his clothing. If he was going to be removed from his position as head elf, he was going to do it with dignity, and that meant he was going to go out there and deal with the rest of the elves as if nothing had happened. They were going to get the Christmas party underway, without waiting for Santa to get back, which despite the general nice, friendly nature of the elves, everyone was in agreement that the more of the party they could get done without the current Santa there, the better.  
  
Not that it was going to be a party of any real proportions this year. The elves hadn't discussed it as a group, but Bernard had spoken with a few of the elves closer to him in rank and they had decided not to do anything big or too exciting. Unbeknownst to the others, the party was going to be over long before Santa got back so that they didn't have to deal with his shouting and generally bad temperament.  
  
Bernard walked out of the room just in time to see the other elves filtering back in to the workshop from the area where Santa had taken off in his sleigh. Normally, he would have been there to wish Santa well and send him on his way, but the thought just hadn't occurred to Bernard this time around. The only thought that passed through the dark-haired elf's mind was to somehow sabotage the sleigh in the hopes that it would crash, and... well, there had to be other men in the world who would believe enough to take on the role of Santa Claus.  
  
When those thoughts passed through his head, Bernard almost felt the urge to yell at himself over the things he had been thinking. He was an elf, for Christmas's sake! He was supposed to be cheerful, and dreaming of anything that would ruin the Christmas of millions of children everywhere just wasn't supposed to happen. The Arch Elf felt bad, he really did, but there was only so much someone could be asked to take, and for once in his relatively long life, he had reached that limit.  
  
"All right, guys, lets get this place cleaned up a bit and then we'll get the party underway!" He informed the elves, receiving a loud cheer as a response. Bernard forced a smile, though forced or not it was one of the few happy expressions anyone had seen on his face in quite some time, knowing that he probably wouldn't have received half of the reply if they knew how uneventful this party was going to be.


End file.
